Link to sign the petition (don’t use handles please)
Jack Eddy was a solar scientist who discovered the sunspot period known as “Maunder Minimum” in the 1970’s, and despite intense academic pressure of the consensus then, argued that this demonstrated that our sun was not constant, but indeed a slightly variable star.
A humble man, he didn’t even name his discovery after himself as some scientists are known to do.
Jack Eddy recently passed away, as announced on WUWT here
Fellow solar astronomer and friend Dr. Leif Svalgaard announced his plan to present this idea formally in comments there:
At the Solar Physics Division [of the American Astronomical Society] next week in Boulder, CO, I will formally request that if a significant solar minimum materializes that it be called the “Eddy Minimum”
If you support this idea, please sign the petition so that Leif can present it with his formal request.
Also dear readers, please link this post and/or the petition to the science (and other) blogs you frequent on a regular basis. Thanks – Anthony
UPDATE: We have 50 signatures in the first half hour. Also just an FYI, don’t sign using a “handle”, or I’ll have to delete the entry as invalid. I’ll provide the complete list in a few days, with names only, no emails. Also if you want to leave an affiliation or title, use the “comments” window of the petition. Thanks – Anthony
The sun is indeed a very variable star and it has been increasing in radiance for the last four billion years at least.
Odd then that during the years of the dinosaur temperatures were much warmer than they are today.
This leads me to logically conclude the earth temperatures are more influenced by what is happening to the earth rather than the sun.
So tectonic planet movement, vulcanicity, meteor/asteroid impacts, earth’s orbit of the sun, tilt of the earth, ocean currents, the impact of carbon-based life forms, etc have far more effect on global temperatures than solar changes.
After all temperatures at the centre of the earth are hotter than those at the surface of the sun. And which is the nearer?
I’ll have to agree with Geoff. I have no horse in this race, was merely one more to submit Landscheit in the comments in the original thread. If Eddy is so honored, good for his legacy, but for Leif to win the poll was, imo, an exercise in obeisance. If he hadn’t been so generous with his time here it never would have happened.
Anthony,
If someone was to send me a bio of Eddy privately I would merge the material into the present article and guard it from reverts from Kim Dabelstein Petersen as best I can.
My private email is alexharv074 at gmail dot com.
“After all temperatures at the centre of the earth are hotter than those at the surface of the sun.”
Whose estimate of the Earth’s core did you use? Any idea what they based their estimate on?
Which ‘surface of the Sun’ are we referring to?
From Spencer Weart’s interview with Jack in 1999:
WEART: Right. So how did you come on giving it this felicitous title of “The Maunder Minimum?”
EDDY: I knew I had a lot of selling to do if people were to accept the notion of such irregularity in the Sun, and I sought a name that people would remember, “Maunder Minimum”, with all those m’s had a kind of onomatopoeia.
WEART: You just like the ring of it. By this time you clearly had some experience in writing. You’d been writing for National Geographic and so on.
EDDY: I like words.
The Maunder Minimum probably should have been called the Eddy Minimum, but this was as much about honoring a scientist as it was about “selling an idea”.
So, it is only fitting and proper to name the next grand minimum after Jack Eddy, which is who I voted for. The next grand minimum, based on the 80-90- year Gleissberg cycle probably won’t be until 2030, though.
Geoff Sharp (21:31:47) :
I thought we agreed already on “Landscheidt Minimum”, as he was the first to predict it.
Lanscheidt predicted that 1990 would be the Grand Minimum year. When that didn’t pan out, he [like Hathaway] just modies the theory to fit. I modestly only predicted that solar cycle 24 would be the smallest in a hundred years. Ken Schatten has predicted a return to Maunder Minimum conditions.
My recollection of the pole had an overwhelming mention of Landscheidt, but no ability to vote for him.
There was an ‘other’ category. Use that.
The naming of Grand Minima is not an ‘official’ thing. In the past [and that is a good tradition] the naming honors person with outstanding contributions to general solar science. Landscheidt and similar ilk only spread pseudo-science.
Leif Svalgaard (07:50:11) :
The naming of Grand Minima is not an ‘official’ thing. In the past [and that is a good tradition] the naming honors person with outstanding contributions to general solar science. Landscheidt and similar ilk only spread pseudo-science.
Ever since Doug Biesecker started to call it the Svalgaard Minimum, I have resisted this.
Grumbler (00:21:54) :
Adam from Kansas (13:46:25) :
Does it seem to you the sun doesn’t feel as intense outside as in
previous years. . .
I’ve noticed that as well. Even on occasional ‘hot’ days doesn’t seem to be burning the way it used to! Psychological?
David UK
That would be 100% psychological.
REPLY: The complimentary psychological claim would be if some person suggested they can smell increased CO2 in the air. “It just doesn’t smell the same this year…” Though, I have no doubt we’ll see a news story along those lines someday. – Anthony
” dennis ward (02:37:33) :
The sun is indeed a very variable star and it has been increasing in radiance for the last four billion years at least.
Odd then that during the years of the dinosaur temperatures were much warmer than they are today.
This leads me to logically conclude the earth temperatures are more influenced by what is happening to the earth rather than the sun. ”
You would be wrong. You need to look at the atmospheric pressure during the dino age. It turns out that in order for dinos to live and run/walk with such huge bodies, the atmo had to be m uch denser to provide some bouyancy as well as more O2 to breathe. Denser atmo was also required in order for pteranodon type creatures to be able to fly, even to get off the ground.
Denser atmo obviously means greater greenhouse effects, more heat retention. Estimates I’ve seen say the atmo was 6-8 times as dense in the cretaceous period as today.
AKD (08:09:15) :
“Does it seem to you the sun doesn’t feel as intense outside as in
previous years. . .”
“I’ve noticed that as well. Even on occasional ‘hot’ days doesn’t seem to be burning the way it used to! Psychological?”
That would be 100% psychological.
I’ve noticed the sun feeling cooler too; I’d also noticed in the hot years a while back that the Sun felt hotter; we discussed it at that time, without a clue as to sunspots or Science, so I remember.
well, it would be an “award” that would more likely draw attention to their infamy in history (speaking of calling this the “gore-hansen” minimum, if it indeed comes to pass.
Naw, I disagree with this 100%. The honor should go to Ted Landscheidt. He was the first one to publicly predict it and put his name on the prediction, not too many years before his death. As the first one to predict it, he deserves it. Yes, Eddy did a lot of good things … but coming in second to Ted should win the second place contestant absolutely nothing.
In addition, Eddy didn’t predict the solar minimum … doesn’t detract from his many accomplishments, but if anyone deserves the honor, it’s Ted Landscheidt.
Finally, you’re swimming upstream here. The minimum is already called the “Landscheidt Minimum” by many people, myself included. I am absolutely stunned that your poll doesn’t even contain his name … watts up with that?
w.
Leif Svalgaard (07:50:11) :
Lanscheidt predicted that 1990 would be the Grand Minimum year. When that didn’t pan out, he [like Hathaway] just modies the theory to fit. I modestly only predicted that solar cycle 24 would be the smallest in a hundred years. Ken Schatten has predicted a return to Maunder Minimum conditions.
That was back in 1981 when Landscheidt made that prediction, it took him some time to formulate his theory that now stands the test of time.
Schatten predicted a SSN of 80+/-30 (what a fudge factor) in 2005 and you predicted something similar in the same year (publication dates), this is hardly a grand minimum. Landscheidt’s prediction for grand minimum was 2003. Landscheidt and Jose(1965) set the ground work, much has been learned since these great men passed away enabling us to predict very accurately…as can be seen my this 200 year solar prediction.
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/2009/06/04/200-year-solar-cycle-prediction/
My recollection of the pole had an overwhelming mention of Landscheidt, but no ability to vote for him.
———————
There was an ‘other’ category. Use that.
You have to be kidding me….that sounds like a fair and just way to run a poll..
I accuse you and Anthony of a “white wash” on this issue, by not giving the public the chance to vote properly and using less than honest headlines…Eddy did not discover the Maunder Minimum.
At the End of the Day I doubt whether you both will be taken seriously.
The naming of Grand Minima is not an ‘official’ thing. In the past [and that is a good tradition] the naming honors person with outstanding contributions to general solar science. Landscheidt and similar ilk only spread pseudo-science.
This is an example of the fear created by the overwhelming accuracy of the next grand minimum predicted by planetary theory. The writing is on the wall and planetary theory will be accepted before the naming rights are allocated….you can try and rush it through, taking advantage of circumstances but it will all be in vain.
Ever since Doug Biesecker started to call it the Svalgaard Minimum, I have resisted this.
The fact that you would accept a grand minimum after your name and you had nothing to do with any prediction just goes to show the size of your ego.
Anthony, I must confess, I don’t like this whole procedure. You are using your scientific blog to pursue Leif’s private agenda. You offer us no opportunity to sign a petition opposing Leif’s action. And when you had a poll on the issue, you didn’t even include Landscheidt’s name … watts up with that?
Sure, you will get people who will sign the petition … but that’s like having an election with only one candidate. The candidate will assuredly win, but that means nothing about what the voters might prefer. Does anyone truly think that there is a “consensus” out there to name the minimum after Jack Eddy? He was a superb scientist, and a good man, but … what does that have to do with the upcoming minimum?
Those of us who have been involved in this issue for a long while remember when Theodore Landscheidt predicted this minimum around two decades ago, and got nothing but shit for it from the AGW crowd. The suggestion has come up over the last decade or so from many people, myself included, to name the minimum after Ted.
And now you are joining with the AGW folks to attack Ted again, in order to deprive him of his very belated, but definitely very deserved, acknowledgement. I fear that all that will do is tarnish, not Ted’s memory, not Jack’s memory, but yours and Leif’s … and I would not wish that on either of you, as you are also good scientists and good men.
w.
Despite the hyperbole above in the original post, Jack Eddy did not “discover the sunspot period called the Maunder Minimum”. In his own words:
Note the part where he says “I wasn’t the first to find it, and it wasn’t really mine”?
Look, Jack Eddy by all accounts was a great scientist and a great guy. But claiming that he discovered the Maunder Minimum is nonsense. It was discovered by Sporer and by Maunder, not by Jack Eddy.
w.
REPLY: Perhaps so, but without his pioneering work to catalog the raw data from Maunder/Sporer, challenge it thoroughly (trying to make it go away) and writing a publication on it, it would have likely been relegated to the dustbin of history. The old sunspot data had been all but forgotten by science for quite some time until Jack resurrected it and gave it a new life. Perhaps a more appropriate term is “rediscover”.
I have a distaste for Landschiedt, mainly due to the astrology stuff that circles around his work. Such as this:
http://www.astrology-books.com/store/Landscheidt_%20Theodore.html
While he may not have intended for that to happen, had he chosen a different tact in publishing, he may have gotten further and avoided such associations today. That’s the PR battle you have with me and many other people.
I know that you and Geoff Sharp feel very strongly about Landscheidt, that’s fine. But I don’t see it the same way as you do. And, I don’t care to turn this tribute to Jack Eddy into a shouting match over who’s right/who’s wrong. It is the wrong time.
If Landschiedt has the respect of the solar community, I’m sure somebody will raise the same questions at that time when Leif proposes the idea. You have options, send a letter, talk to another scientist attending to make a pitch there, but please don’t insist I do a 180 here on WUWT for something I believe in just because you think your candidate is better suited.
Barbara Eddy came here, on the day of his funeral, thanked us, and asked for some help in getting things changed to tell his story. Out of respect for her I ask that you take this conversation to email, and make your pitches using the methods I’ve outlined above.
Thank you for your consideration.
– Anthony
Geoff Sharp (19:12:05) :
Schatten predicted a SSN of 80+/-30 (what a fudge factor) in 2005 and you predicted something similar in the same year (publication dates), this is hardly a grand minimum. Landscheidt’s prediction for grand minimum was 2003.
Which was also my timing “If the next couple of solar cycles (as
expected) turn out to be very weak, we may be able to
constrain the estimates by real data” form my 2003 paper http://www.leif.org/research/Determination%20IMF,%20SW,%20EUV,%201890-2003.pdf
But that is not really important, as it’s not going to be a Grand Minimum, just a couple of smallish cycles. And observationally, we are not in a Grand Minimum yet.
“Ever since Doug Biesecker started to call it the Svalgaard Minimum, I have resisted this.”
The fact that you would accept a grand minimum after your name
seems to contradict what you quoted of what I said.
Willis Eschenbach (20:41:41) :
Those of us who have been involved in this issue for a long while remember when Theodore Landscheidt predicted this minimum around two decades ago
Which turned out wrong. It is easy to fiddle with the theory as you go along [to ‘discover’ new facets of it] to make it fit the changing data. The naming of solar minima traditionally honor great contributions to solar science, not just the ‘discoverer’ of the Minimum, and Ted’s contribution is nil.
Leif Svalgaard (23:17:55) :
But that is not really important, as it’s not going to be a Grand Minimum, just a couple of smallish cycles
And that statement will be your undoing.
To: Willis Eschenbach,
You most likely found the quote from Dr. Eddy, on his Wikipedia page which I had edited earlier on Sunday and reviewed with Anthony. For the benefit of the readers of this forum here is the link and the quote in context:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Eddy#Petition_to_Name_the_Next_Significant_Solar_Minimum
==========
During an interview, in a statement which may yet prove prophetic, Eddy first used the term “Eddy Minimum” while explaining why he rejected it in favor of naming the event the “Maunder Minimum”:
EDDY: And, you know, the temptation was to think that it might someday be called the “Eddy Minimum”: that is, to call it nothing in the hope that someone else would do that. But being from Nebraska, I could never do anything like that. I also knew I wasn’t the first to find it, and it wasn’t really mine. I think I did quite a bit for Maunder with that name. Particularly because he also got the idea from somebody else. He got it from Sporer who was a German astronomer. So, among the shots I took after publishing the paper were some from Germany that said, “You know, you really named it after the wrong person.” Which I knew very well.
While Eddy did not predict the next significant solar minimum he did identify that we are living by the light of a variable star and it is for this reason that the next significant solar minimum should be named in his honor. He was the messenger whose message we have ignored, when he cautioned:
“It was one more defeat in our long and losing battle to keep the Sun perfect, or, if not perfect, constant, and if inconstant, regular. Why we think the Sun should be any of these when other stars are not is more a question for social than for physical science.”
==========
Dr. Eddy is being nominated for this honor not because he discovered a solar minimum but because he demonstrated that our Sun is a variable star.
As for Theodore Landscheidt there may yet be hope. As the Nobel Committee is now awarding the Nobel Prize for amateurish slideshows perhaps they will next turn their attention to Astrology and Wizardry.
Michael Ronayne
Anthony, thanks for your reasoned and gentlemanly response. My apologies for any lines I may have crossed.
I was mostly upset that after a number of years of a number of people including myself referring to the upcoming minimum as the Landscheidt Minimum, you suddenly want to yank the rug out from what is already an established terminology. There’s over a thousand web pages on Google that mention the “Landscheidt Minimum”, so I know I’m not alone in using the name.
I understand your desire to support your friends. I just wish you had considered the wishes of Ted’s friends before trying to take this already-bestowed credit away from him.
You say “If Landschiedt has the respect of the solar community …” but that’s just the problem. He doesn’t, he was always a rebel, nobody believed him … but he predicted the minimum just the same, and his friends hoped and worked to honor him for that. Which is why thousands of people out there now call it the Landscheidt Minimum.
But no, he doesn’t have the respect of the solar community, Jack Eddy does. All Ted has is the Landscheidt Minimum, and now you want to take that away.
That’s the part that was upsetting, that you would decide to re-name <something that many of us had worked at least somewhat successfully to already get named, and whose name was already in use.
You are not writing on a blank slate. You are trying to erase an existing name, a name that I and others worked to establish, and replace it with another name, like an ancient Egyptian chiseling Hatshepsut’s name off of every stela in the Kingdom … so you can understand that I might be upset. My apologies again that in my upset I lost my manners, but the issue is not as simple as writing a name on an empty scroll.
My best to you in your efforts, however. I don’t approve of them, but the good news is that either way, the minimum will be named after a deserving person.
w.
As for Theodore Landscheidt there may yet be hope. As the Nobel Committee is now awarding the Nobel Prize for amateurish slideshows perhaps they will next turn their attention to Astrology and Wizardry.
Michael Ronayne
How perfectly smug. No doubt one of your qualifications to edit Wikipedia.
Obituaries for John Allen Eddy are beginning to appear on the Internet.
Obituaries: John A. Eddy
http://www.dailycamera.com/obits/2009/jun/14/john-eddy/?partner=RSS
Sunspot veteran dies at 78
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/06/sunspot_veteran_dies_at_78.html
Sunspot veteran dies at 78 – June 15, 2009
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/06/sunspot_veteran_dies_at_78.html
Mike
Here is an open copy of Dr. Eddy’s landmark paper on the Maunder Minimum:
The Maunder Minimum. John A. Eddy. Science, New Series, Vol. 192, No. 4245. (Jun. 18, 1976), pp. 1189-1202.
http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/182h/Climate/Solar/Maunder%20Minimum.pdf
Mike
Quoting: hunte (14:31:13) :
“Mike, I am with you completely. This is one of the hottest heat waves for this time of year in Houston I can recall.”
Commenting:
It’s clear to me that you girls were not in my Houston in 1998-2000. Summer temps were 110+ for weeks. I brassed it out in a 1978 Buick with no AC.
As for this summer: “Looxury!, Looxury!”*. Hasn’t hit 100 yet.
*Monty Python – Stone Age.
This Minimum has long been called the Landschiedt Minimum, since that was the guy that first foresaw it.
Naturally, as Leif hates anything related to the barycenter is trying to remove Landschiedt’s name off the books. Good luck with that.